The anti-Taliban intelligence chief in Kandahar, Haji Gullalai, said his forces were closing in on Omar and as many as 1,500 die-hard Taliban fighter who may be protecting him near the town of Baghran in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, 100 miles northwest of Kandahar.

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"We have told them to give us Omar, but no ultimatum has been issued," he said. "We have two goals: to disarm irresponsible people and to get Omar, who is a criminal for the Afghan people and the whole world."

He said he and tribal allies had assembled a force of up to 2,000 fighters and they were ready to try to capture the fugitive if he was not handed over.

The Marines conducting the sweeps today were not participating in the hunt for Omar in Baghran, according to the U.S. Central Command, which is running the military campaign that began Oct. 7.

"That's not their mission," said Army Col. Rick Thomas, a spokesman for the Tampa, Fla.-based command. The precise location of the latest Marine sweeps, which began Monday, was not disclosed.

An unspecified number of Marines were hunting for clues at a spot thought to have been occupied by Taliban or bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters. "It's a place that was occupied by al Qaeda or Taliban so we're looking for whatever they may have been left behind," Thomas said, adding that the Marines were in full combat gear.

Col. Andrew Frick, commander of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said there were a number of suspected sites where Taliban fighters may have holed up since the fall of Kandahar, their last bastion, to U.S.-backed Afghan forces Dec. 7.

"We've been asked at various times in the last two weeks to go out and take a look at these different sites, either to verify that there was Taliban there and exploit the site or to either verify that there was nothing there," he said at a briefing in Kandahar aired by CNN.

On Monday, a senior Defense Department official said there had been a "fairly consistent body of intelligence" suggesting Omar may be near Baghran, in the north of Helmand province.

Omar is second only to bin Laden on Washington's list of most-wanted men from the Afghan campaign. The U.S. launched its campaign in response to the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,300 people in the United States.

In an interview with CNN in Kandahar, Gul Agha Shirzai, the U.S.-backed governor of Kandahar, said he had given an ultimatum to about 1,500 Taliban fighters in the Baghran area to lay down their weapons.

CNN said a Marine convoy, including a dozen light armored vehicles, half a dozen high-mobility "Humvee" military vehicles and an oversized truck packed with Marines, had rumbled out of the Marines' Kandahar base early today and are expected back by Wednesday morning.

ABC's "World News Tonight" quoted unnamed senior military officials as saying communications had been intercepted by the United States from Iran within recent days that suggested bin Laden was still alive.

ABC said a caller in the intercepted communications, who used a code name to refer to bin Laden, said he should be kept off television because he looked sick and his appearance was demoralizing to his followers.